DEBASING DANCING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVI, Issue 41, 24 June 1913, Page 6

DEBASING DANCING.

THE RAGTIME MADNESS. A recent London cable' message stated that there is a growing crusade extending to the columns of the newspapers, arising through Wes J i End hostesses Condemning the Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug, and Argentine Tango dances. Bandmasters are asked to exclude them from their programmes,even if ; the younger dancers request /them. Madame Pavlova, the famous Russian dancer. states thai: the Turkey Trot and the Tango are abominations and travesties. .'We give below an account of scandalous state of things that marked'the craze for

these dances in New York. Major Gavnor's recent announcement that it was high time a check was placed/ on the; immodest dancing and immoderate drinking in New York has filled 'the devotees of alcoholic "Turkey Trotting," which rages all ovei- the 'city, with alarm.

In the 1 dancing halls (cabled the Xew York correspondent of the Daily Chronicle) ligbts are now turned out at 1 a.m., and patrons driven borne. It was about time the authorities put their feet down, for the fever for neurotic excitement has become almost epileptic. The depraved dance .which entered the new world by way of San Francisco now dominates the stage, the hotel, the rstaurant, and the private ball room, until it seems the entire city is under its spell Clerks and typists • "tangoe" and "grape-vine" with society debutantes, and both are to be found dancing not simply after supper, but in fas* hionable afternoon cafes, whose air is heavy with Parisian perfume. In some, resorts "Space reserved for children" is even advertised.

Mr Gaynor followed - lip his suppression of the all-night dancing halls by a formal declaration of war, on April 1, against the dances, which in recent months have developed into an all-pervading feature of restaurant life'in New York. "Tea and dancing every afternoon from four till six" has, this winter been a craze in New York. "Supper and dancing" for years formed, one of the chief sources of amusement for the frequenters of New York restaurants and hotels, but since the advent of the "Turkey Trot" craze the afternoon dance has become the universal passion. All the "smart" restaurants have adopted the new 'vogue.* They are crowded almost to suffocation every afternoon with hundreds of tea and cocktail drinking couples, who at intervals practice the "Tango" and the "Turkey Trot" to the. accompaniment of a.: violin, a banjo,, or even a pair of cymbals, and :a rgia.no,. The new pastime has attracted all classes of society, and- the 'craze has reached such proportions that Mr Gaynor summarily ordered the suppression of dancing at all the resorts where alcoholic - liquors 'we^e" 1 Served. ■ The young man who should be at his office desk and Jhe girl who should be at her typewriter, or behind her canter, telephone that 'are ill. 'So they aWe. They have- the f^ver : for morbid dancing. Musical comedy stars are vscoEning stage salaries, and have started to teach the new version of the "Tango"* and the "Turkey Trot." I do not know (says another New York correspondent) to what extent ,you, have these dances in London, but here, as one writer puts, it, "they are vile, and redolent of the negro in his most brutal activities." The soberer sense of the community is heart and soul with Mayor Gaynor in his crusade.

WILD SUNDAY REVELS

SCENES AT A NOTORIOUS

"TROTTERY."

lAt Bustanoby's, a well-known resort on Broadway, the proprietor announced that Sunday dancing was not "yet illegal," whereupon while the church bells were ringing a negro professor of dancing, according to the New York Sun, "gave the terpsichorean jiujitsu to the descendant of a long line of Congo queens, chucked her to the ceiling, caught her deftly, slammed her from his left arm to his right and loosed a long howl—the high gloat of an artist, who knew his work was good. "The negro professor hadn't anymore than finished'polishing the floor with his woman partner than a wellknown professor of mathematics in this not unknown city plopped a woman's hat on the back of his head, announced to all within hearing that he might be late to-day for his class in quadratic equations, but he should not worry, and sprang on to the floor to imitate with art exceedingly goodlooking young woman the dance just finished by the brunette professionals. Tho young woman was his own wife, and they slid forward in the fastest and freakiest of all the trots. All at once the floor was crowded —so crowded that French heels scoured the shiny patent leather surfaces of conflicting boots; that ankles became locked, and girls, hearing ominous rips underneath, were heard to inquire what the reason was for big boobs with two left feet trying to dance; that sometimes an elbow punched you in the ribs so bard you grunted ; so crowded in fact that the dancers seemed locked in one embrace, swaying ecstatically. Hopping and'' ; prf?ncing, swaying and sliding, was a woman who could not have been a day less than 60, but she had been following George Marion's famous maxim concerning the Turkey Trot, "the more you drink the better you dance it." A cocktail and a trot, a cocktail and a trot, a cocktail and a tro*F«o passed the day. Tho piano and banjo and drum

and the sound of hilarious voices there

rocked for hours the dance that has turned the head of the town : Slide, slide, keep on a-slidin',

Glide, glide, keep on a-slidin', Honey, look into your baby's eyes, Put your arm around me, Ain't you glad you found me? Tease, squeeze, lovin' and movin', I 0, Babe, what are you doin' ? "More than 200 men and women 'and girls and boys stepped to that hymn of the Turkey Trot during tho afternoon, and the police were nice enough to let Papa Bustanoby get away with it. Where other trotteries were dark, where other floors were accumulating the dust of neglect, Bustanoby's was ringing with hilarity and splashing with Avine."